Adoptionplus is a sister company to Fosterplus, a national independent fostering agency with 11 offices in England and Scotland. Fosterplus was formed in 1996 by Adoptionplus’s directors Deborah Ferguson and Paul Snell. It employs over 80 members of staff, supports over 200 foster carers, works with 58 Local Authorities and has over 220 children placed with its carers.

In 2001 Fosterplus established a new adoption service, Adoptionplus. This service was set up to provide adoption support services to Local Authorities.  Adoptionplus was contracted by local authorities to assist them with their recruitment and assessment of prospective adopters. It was also commissioned to provide a variety of support services to new adoptive families, as well as therapeutic support to people affected by adoption. During this time Adoptionplus assisted with the placements of 21 children and also provided additional families with attachment based therapeutic services.

In 2006 Adoptionplus registered as an Adoption Support Agency. It currently has contracts with 3 Local Authorities to provide Birth Family Counselling Services to people who have lost children to adoption.  The contracts with Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire are going well. To date the service has offered counselling to over 100 people and has provided over 600 counselling sessions. Its creative and flexible approach has been reviewed and commented on by two National Journals, Community Care and Therapy Today.  Additionally the service is involved in Government funded Research by the University of East Anglia.

As part of its commitment to provide quality services to children, the Adoptionplus management team have developed and produced a number of books for children. The aim of ‘All About Mummies and Daddies’ and the ‘Billy Says ‘  series is to help adopted and fostered children understand what is happening to them, explain their rights and help them with their feelings. Adoptionplus had also been commissioned by 11 Local authorities around the country to produce their ‘Children’s Guides to Adoption’. Currently the agency is developing a guide for children regarding Adoption Support, which will be in both book and MP3 format.

The Adoptionplus management team believe their background experience helps them understand the needs of adopted children and their parents. Paul Snell and Deborah Ferguson between them have over 60 years of local authority child care practice experience, much of which was spent in senior management positions in the field of Fostering and Adoption.  Joanne Alper also has extensive child care experience that covers child protection, fostering and adoption. Additionally Joanne also brings her knowledge as a qualified Play Therapist and Service Manager of a Specialist Therapeutic Adoption Service. Alongside this, Adoptionplus has recruited Professor David Howe as part of the agencies management board. David brings with him extensive research experience in the field of adoption and child care, and is the author of a number of books in this area.

Fosterplus Ltd, received an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted Inspection Report for its provision of care and support of children recently. You can read more on this achievement at the Bedfordshire on Sunday website.